Student Research Week to Highlight Animalcules

• By Suzanna Cisneros
• March 13, 2019

The Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences will host the 31th Annual Student Research Week March 19-22 at the TTUHSC Academic Classroom Building 3601 4th St.

Every year, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences students organize Student Research Week to showcase the next generation of biomedical researchers and their work and invite distinguished national speakers to present discoveries on a specific theme. This year’s Student Research Week theme is, “Animalcules Detected: Immune Response Activated.”

“The theme aims to connect the complex immune responses which occur when the body comes into contact with the various microorganisms, or as historical scientists like to call them, animalcules,” said Whitni Redman, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences student and event co-chair.

Riccay Elizondo, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences student and event co-director said the event will be a wonderful learning experience.

 

“The great thing about having a local, student-run event like this is every student is given the opportunity to showcase their work whatever level the work is at,” Elizondo said.

2019 Student Research Week keynote speakers include:

Marvin Whiteley, Ph.D., is a professor and the Bennie H. & Nelson D. Abell Chair in Molecular and Cellular Biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. From 2013 to 2017 he served as the co-director for the Emory-Children’s Cystic Fibrosis Center. He served as the director of the John R. LaMontagne Center for Infectious Disease at the University of Texas at Austin. Whiteley received his Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Iowa where he studied quorum sensing and biofilm development in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University followed by serving as a scientist for Cumbre Pharmaceuticals prior to his academic career.
 
Anice Lowen, Ph.D., is a tenured associate professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Emory University School of Medicine. She completed her Ph.D. on the Bunyamwera virus at the University of Glasgow. She then continued her post-doctoral training at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Her current research focuses on the mechanisms of rapid influenza virus evolution and how it contributes to the ecology of the virus within the wide range of hosts it infects. Her work seeks to improve the understanding of viral reassortment at a fundamental level by defining the underlying factors that dictate the frequency and reassortment implications for influenza A virus evolution.

Student Research Week events include:

March 19 (Tuesday)
Vendor Show, 9 a.m. to noon, TTUHSC 5th floor BC lobby
Academic Classroom Building (ACB) first and second floor lobby areas
Poster Session I, 1 to 4 p.m.
Open Poster Exhibit 1, noon to 1 p.m.
 

March 20 (Wednesday)
ACB, first and second floorlobby areas
Poster Session II, 9 a.m. to noon.
Open Poster Exhibit II, noon to 1 p.m.
Poster Exhibit III, 1 to 4 p.m.
     
March 21 (Thursday)
ACB, first and second floorlobby areas
Poster Session IV, 9 a.m. to noon
Open Poster Exhibit III, noon to 1 p.m.
Poster Exhibit V, 1 to 4 p.m.
 
Student Research Week Banquet
6:30 p.m. (McKenzie-Merket Alumni Center)
Invitations limited to faculty, staff and Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences students
 
March 22 (Friday)
-Select student presentations, 9 to 10 a.m. (ACB, Room 100)
-Select student presentations,10:15 to 11:15 a.m. (ACB, Room 100)
-Keynote speaker (Whiteley), 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. (ACB, Room 100)
-Lunch, 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. (ACB, first floor lobby)
-Keynote II (Lowen), 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. (ACB, Room 100)
-Student Research Week Awards Ceremony, 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. (ACB, Room 100)
-Student coffee with speakers, 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. (ACB, Room 100)

For more information about Student Research Week, call the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at (806) 743-2556.